TechHOUNDS, this school’s robotics team, competed at Purdue’s Indiana District on March 19. The team placed 5^th overall. Since then, members have continued to improve their skillset for the state competition, which will take place April 2.

TechHOUNDS coach Zachary Bonewit said the team has made tremendous progress from the start of the competition to the end of it, although they were met with the same challenges.

According to Sameer Leley, TechHOUNDS member and junior, the team is working on driver practice for Thursday.

The Purdue competition was highly competitive, according to Leley. “There were a lot more teams, so competition was more difficult than usual. To advance past quarterfinals, teams needed an average score around 112-116 points, and we scored around 70 points.”

According to Bonewit, the team was confronted with reoccurring challenges throughout the competition. “We mostly had problems with our computer hardware,” he said. “It came up at the beginning and on the last day of competition, it was still there. There were also communication issues between the computer and robot.

“We are working hard to improve for next time.”